


Straight On Till Morning

by sinuous_curve



Category: Cobra Starship
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:58:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinuous_curve/pseuds/sinuous_curve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabe's leaning against the brick wall of the building that sits on his corner when the new kid appears, materializing from the gloom to hover uncertainly in the sickly yellow glow of the streetlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Straight On Till Morning

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sex worker!au. Warnings for prostitution, some of it implied to be underage as well as background character death and drug abuse.
> 
> Major thanks to jezzabe and 1001cranes for betaing, as well as trust_your_lust, uinuva, and soapbox_queen.

Gabe's leaning against the brick wall of the building that sits on his corner when the new kid appears, materializing from the gloom to hover uncertainly in the sickly yellow glow of the streetlight.

He's young and pretty, but so are all the boys working the streets, it's kind of the fucking point. He's uncommonly pretty, Gabe decides, unmoved. Being pretty is a good thing and a bad thing, the proverbial double edged sword brought to reality in fists and belts and marks left on too pretty skin.

"I'm Nate," he says, voice more certain that some Gabe has seen, but less certain than his own was. No one chooses to be a whore, it's the kind of decision life makes for you. Some people accept that more easily than others.

Gabe stays silent and studies him, the new kid, Nate, in his jeans that are just a little too tight and shirt just short enough to reveal a thin strip of stomach when he moves. Hair slants across his face, a little long and ragged at the ends, but it looks alright on him. A silver ring glints in his nose and it shouldn't make him look younger, prettier, but it does.

He's got beautiful eyes, Gabe notes, eyes that could get a boy some serious money. If he knows how to use them right.

"He told me I was supposed to come down here. Lucas, I mean," Nate clarifies like he could possibly be talking about anyone else. Everyone knows who the boys belong to and it's certainly not themselves or a benevolent God. "He told me I was supposed to come down here."

"I figured," Gabe replies. He wishes he had a cigarette, but the bastards are expensive and he fell a little short last week. "You'd have to be pretty fucking stupid to come down here if he hadn't told you to and you were planning on buying."

The kid looks down at his feet and grits his teeth; Gabe can see the muscle in his jaw work and it's almost fucking cute, the little hints of indignation coming from a boy who's ass will have gone to the highest bidder come morning.

"I'm Gabe." He pushes off the wall and tips Nate's face up with two fingers beneath the jaw. "This is my corner, but as he sent you, I guess I can learn to share."

Nate huffs out a sarcastic chuckle. "I'm honored."

Gabe smirks.

Nate's a baby. Given time, he'll learn just how true that is.

**

It doesn't take long for the Johns to show up. It's Monday, not the busiest night by a long shot, but sin knows no rest and there's always someone looking to pay for their daily dose of forbidden carnality.

Gabe parcels the blowjobs over to Nate because he's got a fucking gorgeous mouth, why not use it the way the good Lord intended it for? Besides, despite all evidence to the contrary, Gabe's not naturally a bastard and there's no reason to give Nate more than he can handle.

He takes the alley fucks, pushed up against the brick wall, faking the moans and groans, reciting the same litany of recycled praise he always gives. Things never change in their dirty little corner of the world.

**

They're technically only supposed to head back to the tiny little cesspool closets they call home at five, but an hour before that Nate's mouth is raw around the edges and his eyes have taken on the hint of manic weariness they all get the first night.

Gabe sends him back after making sure he's made enough to cover the night. There's no forgiveness for shortchanging, no matter how new you are. Fuck, there's no forgiveness even if you're usually a big earner. Gabe knows that first hand.

He watches Nate disappear around the corner, then leans back into the cool brick and counts the cars as they go buy. Some of the cockier John's like to window shop, cruising slow through the neighborhood, debating which piece of ass looks the most appetizing.

It's not that hard to let his mind wander to the new kid, even as his body puts on a show.

**

The sun comes up and boys slip away.

Gabe saunters along the street, heading for the Stable, as Lucas says; it's the remnant of what used to be a tenement, filled with tiny cells masquerading as 'apartments' with one bathroom on the end of each floor.

It's old, small, and disgusting, but it's a room. That puts it one monumental step up from the worst place Gabe's ever slept, so he can hardly complain. Besides, he's earned the right to a warm-ish shower twice a week and the boys who indulge in a little chemical escape have learned to leave him alone and make sure their friends do the same while they're riding their own highs.

Alex and Ryland are waiting for him, sitting on the steps with their heads bent together, talking in low voices.

They're a genuine rarity, two whores in actual, honest to God love with each other and it's endearing to Gabe in the most tragic way because there's no fucking chance in hell their epic love story is destined for anything but a tragic ending.

You can't fuck around for a living and end up riding into the sunset. Others have tried and failed, and Gabe thinks there's nothing worse than coming back to hell after having tasted a glimpse of heaven.

"Saw you had visitor," Ryland says without preamble. They're all tired, the side effect of living a nocturnal existence, and there's no energy left for polite platitudes.

Gabe smirks and eases down next to them. Alex has his head tipped onto Ryland's shoulders, eyes half lidded and he's paler than usual, breathing even and too controlled to be considered normal. Gabe catches Ryland's eyes over Alex's head; the worry there is plain.

Someone got rough. It's an occupational hazard, yes, but it still kills him. Gabe's sense of ethics is fucked up, he knows, but there are very few people in the world he would both kill and die for it and he hates seeing them take the shit life deals.

"Yeah, new kid," Gabe says, inhaling slowly. If Ryland's not panicking, then Alex isn't dying. Bruised and battered, hurt to the bone maybe, but not dying. "Nate."

"Is he gonna make it?" Alex asks, words clipped slightly from pain.

Gabe considers the question. He's seen all kinds; sweet boys like Alex, who will always have innocence written into the lines of the face and boys like Ryland who have to work a little harder to make ends meet because their beauty has to be appreciated on a grander scale than a glace. There's William and Siska who are so fucking beautiful they could be a girls and Vicky T, one of the few who's pretty like a girl because she is a girl.

Gabe rubs his thumb across the knuckles of his opposite hand and thinks about Nate, Nate's eyes and mouth, his hands and hair.

He'd been shaking when he walked in the alley with the first John, shaking harder when he walked back out. But by the third he'd managed to turn on a little charm; clumsy, yes, and with another it might've lost him the trick or even gotten him hit, but still.

Gabe smoothes down Alex's hair. "Yeah. Probably."

**

Alex and Ryland go to Ryland's room on the bottom floor. They won't fuck, Gabe knows for certain. They fuck all night; when they're with each other they just want to hold and protect, feel protected. Ryland will do whatever needs to be done to fix Alex. Gabe has faith in that.

He doesn't share his room, one of the few perks of seniority, but there's someone inside when he pushes open the door anyway.

William, curled up on his side, hair falling across his face. He's asleep, but barely, whimpering in the back of his throat, fingers spasming against his knees. Gabe kneels down beside the mattress and shakes his shoulder, gently as he can. William is so fucking beautiful and people pay obscene amounts of money to do everything they can to ruin that beauty.

His eyes snap open and Gabe easily catches the arm that lashes out. William had shown up one night on his corner too, wide eyed and skeleton thin, hiding behind his hair. Gabe turned him into something that could use the beauty, the androgynous face and sometimes, when he sees William like this, his stomach twists with guilt.

"William, Bill, it's me," Gabe mumbles, sliding underneath the battered sleeping bag.

William exhales sharply and curls around Gabe, tucking his head under Gabe's chin. "I was having a nightmare."

"I know." Gabe rubs a long circle around the bony ridges of his spine and closes his eyes. "I'm here."

**

William's gone when Gabe wakes up and he's not worried; it's par for the course with him.

Technically William doesn't belong to Gabe anymore, he's moved on to bigger and better places than being the green kid learning the basics. He has Siska, who's young enough for even Gabe to pause, but filled with enough anger that Gabe doesn't worry about him surviving.

But if William wanders back to Gabe every now and then or even every morning, no one says anything. Hell, there are times Gabe wishes he could wander back to Pete; there are times he wishes Pete was still there to wander back to.

**

_Gabe stands on the corner, shoulders hunched up, hands shoved deep down in his pocket as his stomach twisted in writhed in fear. The guy leaning against the wall surveys him with little more than mild disinterest._

He's small, compact, with black hair falling into his face and tattoos flowing over both arms. Gabe really can't honestly call him beautiful, but there's something…something.

"What's your name?" he asks.

"Gabe."

He smiles and, God, Gabe suddenly understands. "Hi, Gabe. I'm Pete."

**

Nate's already on the corner when Gabe gets there; he hovers in the shadows for a moment, watching as the kid leans against the wall, and goddamn if imitation isn't the sincerest form of flattery.

"Get in the light more," Gabe advises and Nate pushes off, heat flooding into his cheeks. "Stay too much in the shadows and no one'll realize you're selling anything, which defeats the point."

"I'll remember that." Nate's hands find their way to his pockets and Gabe has to wonder if he does it on accident, or because he knows it pulls his jeans tighter across his crotch. His hair falls in front of his face and Gabe reaches out without thinking and tucks the long strands behind his ear.

"Don't hide your eyes," Gabe says and his voice is cool and calm, the expert, the mother fucking pro and it would take someone who knows him better than he knows himself to catch the moment of fear/attraction that flashes in his eyes.

He's not going there. Fuck that shit. He's not going to end up like Pete.

"Okay." Nate nods.

"You're taking some of the alley fucks tonight," Gabe says and Nate pales a little, but nods. "My ass can only take so much and if you're going to do this you're going to have to get used to being fucked."

"I can take it," Nate says with a ghost of a smile.

They both ignore the simple truth that it's not like he has much choice anymore.

**

Gabe sizes up all the Johns before he sends Nate off with one.

It's not out of any deep, inexplicable sense of kindness for the kid, it's just part of the routine. He did the same thing for William and sometimes Gabe thinks that's where it all began for Will; Gabe sensed that he would be worth more to those who wanted break him than to those who wanted to preserve him. Whatever, it's in the past, and Gabe doesn't let himself think about that.

He picks a harmless one; an average guy in rumpled suit with weariness in his eyes. He's not looking to break skin, he's just looking for an uncomplicated fuck with a warm body. Nate's will be worth more than that, but only in time.

Nate involuntarily glances over his shoulder as they vanish into the dark of the alley, and Gabe smirks at him. Good luck, he mouths, and something that might be the ghost of a smile flits across Nate's pale face.

He'll be fine.

**

It doesn't take too long.

Nate stumbles out of the alley, hair mussed, teeth worrying at his lip, more in discomfort than actual pain. Gabe glances over his form, looking for bruises and marks, and finds nothing unusual. "You okay?"

"I've never…" Nate swallows, closes his eyes. "I've just never done that before. I'm fine."

In another life, another place, Gabe would have wanted to cry for common brutality of what should be, in a perfect world, something a little more fucking special than dirty, uncomfortable screw against the filthy wall of graffitied alley.

**

On his way back, Gabe pauses across the street and watches as a car drops Ryland off at the corner he shares with Alex. Bruise purple smears rim his eyes and, though he's been at it too long to let it show, Gabe can see the exhaustion written in every line of his body.

Gabe slinks across the street as the car speeds away. Ryland greets him with a weary nod and they fall in step heading toward the Stable. "Where's Alex?"

"I made him stay behind and sleep." Ryland runs a hand through his hair. "He needed the rest."

Gabe doesn't bother to point out that Ryland needs to sleep, too, and that life will be a whole fucking hell of a lot worse for Alex if something happens to Ryland. There's no point. Ryland loves Alex, so he pulls stupid shit and Gabe hovers and watches, picking up the fallen pieces when he can. "He'll be back tonight?"

Ryland nods. "How's the new kid?"

"Nate," Gabe says. "He's fine."

**

William's awake when Gabe gets to his room, sitting cross legged on the mattress, humming softly under his breath. Gabe smiles softly and eases down next to him; William inspires empathy like no other person Gabe has ever met, people bleed with him and smile with him and laugh with him.

"So, you have a new kid?" William wraps himself around Gabe as they lean against the exposed concrete walls.

Gabe tangles his fingers in William's hair and lets his eyes slide shut. If he was ever going to love someone, it might have been William. Hell, he does love William, but too much has broken William for him to ever love anyone back. And that's partially Gabe's fault and the argument is so circular it makes his head fucking hurt.

"Good news travels fast," Gabe sighs and William breathes out a soft laugh that ghost across Gabe's collarbone.

"You know whores, can't keep their mouths shut."

Gabe laughs softly. "Touché."

"Is he as pretty as me?" It's spoken as a joke, but there's a desperate element of truth threaded through the words. William doesn't understand that he's beautiful.

Gabe tightens his arms around William's body and he feels so fragile, like his bones are made of glass and porcelain, so easily shattered into a hundred thousand irreparably broken pieces. "No one's as pretty as you, Bill."

**

Wednesdays they get off because there's something about hump days that make people not want to fuck, or at least not pay to fuck.

**

Gabe sleeps in, eats a couple handfuls of cereal dry and manages five minutes of warm water before the spray turns icy against his back. He dresses in loose sweatpants, soft from wear and way too baggy to ever be worn on the corner. It's a small indulgence, the only kind he allows himself.

He checks on Alex and Ryland. Ryland's leaning against the wall with Alex curled up with his head on his thigh. They're murmuring softly to each other when Gabe walks in and he doesn't say long. He knows disaster is circling them, waiting to hit, so fuck if he's going to intrude on the time they have.

No one seems to know where William and Siska have vanished to. Gabe's worried, but only in a distant way, the faint spark of protectiveness he will always feel when it comes to William.

Gabe ends up on the roof, leaning against the edges with a cigarette dangling loosely from his hand. The city sprawls out beneath him, throbbing and ugly, a patchwork of harsh cement and crumbling brick and he wonders that anyone considers it beautiful.

He takes a long drag, savoring the sweet burn and thinks of how Pete would say smoking is clearly the first sign of subtle death wish, but he'd laugh as he said it and bum a light in the next breath. Gabe's chest hurts and it had nothing to do with the fucking smoke.

**

When Nate appears, lingering awkward in the rusted doorway that leads to the stairs, Gabe knows it's only on intervention from Alex but he can't find it himself to be annoyed.

Nate's wrapped up in defiantly baggy jeans and a too big hoodie with the hood pulled up. His hands are jammed in his pockets and his mouth looks raw and rough. Gabe knows that he'll probably have a little hitch in his step when he walks, but he's upright, which is more than some of them can say on any given night.

"Is it okay that I'm up here?" Nate asks and Gabe smiles to himself.

He's still got that almost charming streak of common courtesy. It's one of the many things that'll get fucked out of him as time passes. Gabe has seen it too often to waste time hope differently. "It's fine."

Nate's shivering a little as he comes up next to Gabe, close enough for Gabe to feel the heat radiating off his body. He still smells like whatever shampoo he used before he arrived on the corner. Something tangy and sweet. Gabe stubs out the cigarette and flicks it away.

"This place isn't what I thought it'd be," Nate muses softly, more to himself than anything else.

Gabe almost laughs. Amen, brother, he thinks. A-fucking-men. "What the fuck did you expect?"

"I don't even fucking know," Nate sighs with a bland little smile. "I didn't think, I guess. I just did."

They all have stories, some nothing more than a bad choice here and bad choice there that compounds together in a life so fucked up there's no way out of the holes they've dug for themselves. For others, it's Dateline fodder, mean daddies and uncaring mommies, foster homes and getting lost in the system until the system spit them out on the world with nothing and no one.

It's all a variation on the same theme.

"Why?" Gabe asks, glancing at Nate. Eyes and mouth, he's so goddamn pretty.

Nate runs a thumb along the line of his jaw and fiddles with the ring in his nose. Gabe pats his pocket and feels the empty pack smashed flat against his thigh.

"I'm a drummer," Nate eventually says. "Not the best, but I'm okay. And I had this band and, well, pretty much we were shit, but we had fun. It was just a stupid high school thing, you know. The lead singer was this guy and I got a fucking idiot crush on him. And one night after practice we were hanging out in his living room and we'd snuck some beers from his dad and I kissed him."

Gabe meets Nate's gaze with level eyes. It's an old story, almost passé, because the cold truth of the world is that something is always going to go wrong and someone is always going to hate you for something that's beyond your control.

"He flipped out." Nate looks down at his feet. "A few days later he, the rest of the band, and a couple other guys cornered me after school and beat the shit out of me. When I told my parents what happened, my dad looked me in the eye and told me I was a faggot and who got what I deserved. So I packed some shit, got on a bus, and came here."

"And?" Gabe cocks an eyebrow.

The only part of the story that interests him anymore, beyond the dull, phantom stab of pity he feels at every telling, is how they get from point b to point c. Being in the city, even alone and young and broke, is not synonymous with being a whore. There has to be an intervening step.

"And?" Nate echoes.

Gabe smirks. "I don't believe you got on that bus in whatever the fuck town you come from with the intention of selling your ass and mouth every night. If you did, then you've got more issues than even I'm used to. So, Nate, how'd you get from the bus to the corner?"

Nate presses his mouth in a thin line and looks out over the city. Night's falling fast, painting the sky in flat strokes of purple and gray and the first gleam of the city lights sparkly dimly in the midst of the concrete. "I tried to find a job and couldn't and I ended up on the streets. So it was either sell drugs or sell myself and I figured this way at least the only person who got hurt was me."

It takes Gabe a moment to process the words, to realize that the defiance in Nate's eyes isn't the first sign of a lie, but rather Nate daring Gabe to be the next person to tell him what an idiot he is.

Gabe reaches out and smoothes Nate's hair away from his face and thinks there is something about Nate that reminds him of Patrick and he ignores the dull ache that Patrick's memory brings.

Patrick and Pete, Patrick and Pete. Gabe bites down on his lip and pulls his hand away more sharply than he meant to.

"What about you?" Nate asks after a long pause, voice tentative.

Gabe shoots him a wry smile, pushes off the side of the building, and heads back down to his room. William is waiting.

**

Alex is back on his and Ryland's corner for Thursday night, when business starts to pick up for the weekend. Ryland's being overprotective and won't let him leave for motel jobs, but Alex still looks a little battered around the edges and Gabe can't find it himself to disagree.

"Do me a favor," Gabe says, leaning in to murmur in Alex's ear. Ryland's out and Nate's in the alley and Gabe's running a little low for the second week from two days spent attached the corner to keep an eye on the kid. "I've gotta do some catch up tonight. Watch out for Nate."

Alex smiles a little and jerks his head in a nod. "Yeah."

"Thanks." Gabe runs a hand through Alex's hair and heads back to his corner, mindful of the eyes he can't see watching him. Johns tend to materialize and Gabe has learned that it never pays to stop the show.,

"You like him," Alex calls softly as Gabe steps onto the pavement.

He rolls his eyes and shoots Alex a look; it's the closest thing he has to a yes.

**

Gabe doesn't wait for Nate to come back before picking up a motel job. He doesn't think about the screwed logic behind the need for Nate to not see him climb into the car and sidle up to the man in the driver's seat, all steroid pumped muscle and manic self loathing.

In the grand scheme of things, the John's nothing special. Just a hard-ass who likes his sex rougher than anyone would willingly give. He ties Gabe's hands to the bed and goes to work.

Gabe closes his eyes and grits his teeth, turns the grunts of pain into moans of manufactured ecstasy and tucks the wad of bills into his shoes as he sits in the car on the way back to the corner.

Nate's leaning against the wall, in the light with his hair brushed out of his eyes. Gabe smiles just a little as he slides out of the car, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from wincing. He can feel the tender patches of skin beneath his clothes, pulsing softly with the faint prelude to the ache he'll feel in the morning.

"Alex stood with me for a while," Nate states obliquely once the John has driven away. "I wonder why he'd do that."

Gabe takes a moment to steady himself. "Alex is one hell of a nice guy."

"Right." Nate watches him with an expression he can't read as Gabe takes his place next to him on the wall, careful to twist his body so he looks like sin personified without unnecessarily punishing his muscles. "You okay?"

"Fucking fabulous," Gabe exhales.

Nate hooks his thumbs in his belt loops. "Thanks."

The word is so soft Gabe barely hears it and he knows better than offer any acknowledgement other than a quiet smile.

**

"I like him," Alex says the next afternoon as they sit in Gabe's room, passing a half empty bag of chips between the two of them. Ryland's still asleep and William's in his room with Siska, door closed and locked.

"Who?"

"Nate, moron." Alex grins and brushes crumbs off his shirt. "Nate Navarro."

"Navarro?" Gabe echoes. He likes the name, the way his tongue can roll around the r's, teasing the drawn out syllables.

Alex cocks his head. "You didn't know that?"

Gabe doesn't ask for the details anymore, the fragments of personalities and beings that will slowly chip away as time passes. He doesn't care any longer, though he still accepts whatever tidbits find their way to him. Caring takes energy he doesn't have, especially for those who aren't going to last.

"No." Gabe tips his head back against the wall. "I didn't."

**

_Gabe winces as Pete gently presses his fingers against his ribs, testing the flesh for any worse than the growing bruises._

"Sorry," Pete says with a grimace. "Jesus, Gabe, what the hell did you do wrong?"

"Very funny," Gabe says through gritted teeth.

Pete chuckles and pulls his shirt down. "You'll survive." He ruffles Gabe's hair and Gabe can't help but smile, just a little.

**

William and Siska have a fight over God only knows what. They speak in a language of phrases and floating words, incomprehensible to anyone but themselves, and even Gabe is lost when it comes to unraveling the tangled threads of what they mean to each other.

All Gabe knows is that he comes in early Sunday morning, tired and fucking hurting all over, because there's no way to handle the sheer traffic volume of Saturday without gritting your teeth and taking more than you can usually bear. He find William curled up on his bed, shoulders shaking in silent sobs.

Ryland and Alex are with him, both bleary eyed and shuffling, and Gabe wants nothing more than to fall into his bed with their warm bodies curled around him.

But it's William, William whose hurting, and Gabe has never been able to turn away from that.

He's on the bed before he can think, sliding his arms around William's waist and pulling him to his chest. His face is damp, God, he's shaking so hard Gabe can barely keep hold.

"William, I'm here," Gabe murmurs. "It's okay. Ry, go check on Siska."

Ryland nods and takes off as Alex sinks down on the bed and lays his cheek between William's shoulder blades.

William breaks down, but Siska has too much rage simmering beneath the surface of his skin to do the same. He doesn't cry, he's gets utterly silent, eyes burning with an anger that makes even Gabe tense; then something sets him off, some little trigger, and all hell breaks loose. The last thing they need is Siska breaking someone's nose and compounding the problem.

It's happened before.

"Calm down, William," Gabe mumbles, carding his fingers in William's hair. "It's okay, Bill. C'mon."

Gabe hears footsteps, but it's not Ryland that appears in the doorway. It's Nate, hands jammed uncomfortably in his pockets, like he's intruding on something utterly private he's not sure he has the right to see.

"Ryland asked me to tell you he found Siska on the roof and he's trying to calm him down." Gabe can hear Alex sigh softly. Ryland has a strange soothing effect on people.

Gabe nods. "Okay. Come here."

William has this thing about touch.

Nate hesitates for a moment.

"Please, Nate," Alex whispers.

They end up laying spooned together, Gabe tucked behind William, Alex in front with Nate kind of spread over the three of them, head cradled between William's shoulder and Gabe's chest. Gabe can feel the steady rise and fall as Nate breathes and the thud of William's heart and he thinks maybe they'll survive after all.

**

Gabe wakes to Alex hovering over him, murmuring in his ear. "William's okay now. I'm going back to my room."

He mumbles something in the affirmative and falls back asleep.

**

He wakes a second time to Nate's pretty eyes regarding him levelly over the top of William's head.

William's asleep, breathing heavy and somehow labored, but Gabe's almost sure that it's a symptom of crying and nothing else. His face is pressed into Nate's neck and one hand is curled loosely in Nate's shirt. Gabe smiles apologetically and Nate quirks his shoulders in a small shrug.

"Is he going to be okay?" Nate whispers, voice barely carrying in the quiet.

"Yeah." Gabe smoothes down William's hair.

"What happened?"

There are a thousand answers Gabe could give to that question and he supposes it's only the quiet and the new brand of intimacy laying quietly over them that makes him offer up the one he does. "The same fight William and Siska always have, no matter how the words change."

Nate doesn't say anything.

"William has this quality," Gabe murmurs, rubbing a slow circle on William's stomach, "This fragility. Beauty. And people either want to protect it or destroy it. The ones that want to destroy it will pay almost anything for their shot. Do you know what William's specialty is?"

Nate shakes his head.

"Attack fantasy," Gabe mumbles bitterly because he was the one who sensed the right combination of strength and weakness, who nudged William along the way. "Rape fantasy. The money in those kind of jobs is fucking incredible. The problem is keeping track of the line between fantasy and reality."

"Jesus." Nate shivers and glances down at William's drawn face.

"Siska hates it." Boy does Siska hate it, Gabe thinks. "And every now and again, when he can't keep his fucking mouth shut, it all comes out, but because Siska is Siska, it comes out in a way that cuts William to the core. Then William breaks down and Siska freaks out for a little while and, in the morning, they'll both be fine and we all pretend like nothing ever happened."

"How?" Nate asks and Gabe wants to kiss away the worry line that appears in the skin between his eyebrows. Fucking hell.

"We don't have a choice."

**

William silently slips from the tangle of Gabe and Nate's arms, brushing a feather light kiss across Gabe's temple, and slinks away.

Gabe's awake and William probably knows that, but he keeps his eyes closed and his breathing steady to maintain the illusion. There's no reason, only that it's easier for William to apologize without having to look Gabe in the eyes and Gabe doesn't know how to tell William there's no need to ask for forgiveness since he hasn't done anything wrong.

The door closes with a quiet click and Nate shifts into the warm spot William left, curling up against Gabe's side.

**

Monday morning they all pay up, handing over eighty percent of the week's take.

With a little maneuvering and resigned acceptance of the fact they'll be eating lightly, Ryland and Alex break even.

William and Siska turn over whatever they have with the small comfort of knowing nothing will ever be said because they're both unique, irreplaceable, in what they offer.

"How'd the new kid do?" Gabe murmurs to one of Lucas's boys. He's tall and thin, a one time whore who got to know the business end of a John's knife a little to well during a job. For reasons no one asks about or thinks about, Lucas took pity on his scarred face and offered him a place in a different division. His name's Andrew, but he's called Butcher.

"A little short," Butcher replies. He's a good guy, despite his job description. He understands what it's like to be on the other side. "But not too bad for a first time."

Gabe pressed some crumpled bills into Butcher's hand. "Really? I thought for sure he'd break even."

Butcher raises an eyebrow, but pockets the money and doesn't ask questions.

**

"Why do you keep doing that?"

Gabe's sprawled on his bed, re-reading an old paperback he'd picked up when the last bookstore in the neighborhood finally succumbed to urban decay and folded. "What exactly am I doing?"

Nate shifts back and forth on the balls of his feet. "Taking care of me."

Gabe shrugs. "I don't have any fucking idea what you're talking about."

"Right. 'Course." Nate huffs out a laugh.

"But if I were doing something," Gabe says as Nate's halfway out the door, "it might be because I don't want your pretty face to get broken."

He hopes Nate understands.

**

Alex has a regular they call Doublemint because he likes two boys at once. The second changes every time he comes around, since apparently it's only Alex's pretty face that drives him batshit crazy and the other's just a body.

"Next time Doublemint shows up," Gabe says to Alex, "Try to get him to take Nate as the second."

Alex cocks his head. "Okay. Why?"

"Because you're a good person," Gabe replies wryly."

Truth is, he hasn't sent Nate on a motel job and he's finding himself oddly reluctant to do so. Blowjobs and alley fucks are pretty safe. If something goes wrong, you let out a yell and any whore in the vicinity will come running. You don't want bastards coming around who are going to start shit, so it's in everyone's best interest to scare those fuckers off.

But motel jobs are different. Once you get in the car, you're in their hands, on their time, earning their dollar, so you do whatever the fuck they want until they drop you back off.

Shit goes wrong. Shit goes wrong often.

**

Two days later, Doublemint's maroon sedan pulls up to the curb and the window rolls down.

"C'mon Nate," Alex says, "I've been telling handsome here just how good a time you and I can show him."

Fear dawns in Nate's eyes as he glanced at Gabe. The first one's always the hardest because no one ever really forgets their mom telling them not to get in the car with stranger.

Gabe jerks his head; Nate swallows and climbs in.

**

"You're running more interference than usual."

Gabe glances up at Ryland, mouth half full of tepid water to wash out the taste of his last John. He swishes it through his teeth and spits. "The fuck, Ry?"

Ryland smirks. "Nate. You're being more careful with him than any other boy that's shared your corner."

Gabe rolls his eyes at the implication. Nate is just another pretty face and young dick, even if he does have eyes that Gabe can't seem to keep out of his head.

What-the-fuck-ever.

"You have come on you collar," Gabe says blandly and Ryland laughs, flipping him off as he heads across the street.

**

The sedan comes back a couple hours later and Nate crawls out, hair mussed, mouth just a little swollen with a faint red bruise along the column of his throat, but in one piece and even smiling just a little at something Alex said as the door opened.

"Well?" Gabe asks as the car makes its way to Alex and Ryland's corner.

Nate leans against the wall with a slight wince. "Alex is hung."

Gabe lets out a bark of laughter without thinking and Nate blushes, definitely raising his head. "The John wanted to watch. It's not like I was staring or anything."

"The thought never crossed my mind," Gabe manages to say, biting down on his lip.

Nate smiles a little and Gabe reaches out and ruffled his hear, indulging a whim. He's doing that more and more when it comes to Nate and the thought should probably worry him more than it does.

**

Doublemint picks up Nate as a regular.

"He said it was my eyes," Nate tells Gabe with a smirk.

"Told you," Gabe laughs.

**

_"Thing is, you're not really pretty," Pete says conversationally. They're sitting in his room, eating stale Twinkies and passing back and forth a bottle of Pepsi._

Gabe rolls his eyes. "Thanks, Pete. I didn't really need my self esteem."

"I didn't say you were ugly, smartass." Pete smacks him lightly across the back of the head and Gabe hides a grin. "I said you weren't pretty. Your face is too strong to be pretty."

Gabe shrugs. "I can't do anything about that."

"You don't need to," Pete says after a beat, running his thumb along the curve of Gabe's jaw. "You're special, Gabe, you've just to got work things a little differently."

**

Alex finds out Nate's birthday, but it's Gabe who comes up with the idea of taking him out and doing something the normal people would do. May fourth falls on a Saturday, so they have to wait till the Wednesday after, but from the way Nate's eyes light up when they walk into the restaurant, Gabe doesn't think he minds all the much.

It's nothing extravagant, because God knows they barely survive on their cut; just dinner at some little family friendly restaurant far enough away that no one will recognize their faces from the nights spent on the corners.

They sit in the booth, Ryland's arm slung across Alex's shoulder on one side, Nate and Gabe's knees touching on the other, eating off each other's plates and feeling oddly, irrationally normal.

"It's like being a real person again," Nate murmurs through a bright grin and Gabe ruffles his hair. It hurts a little that he's still unbroken enough to need nothing more than dinner to switch back to what he was.

He hasn't been a real person in a fucking long time.

Alex tells the wait staff it's Nate's birthday and they bring out free cake and ice cream, clapping and hooting while the other patrons watch with amused eyes; they gather around the table and sing loud, off key, and relatively enthusiastically, while Nate blushes and tries to sink beneath the table.

"Make a wish!" the waitress instructs. Her nametag says 'Lila' and she's young enough to be batting her eyes at Nate. Another time, another place, Gabe thinks.

Nate blows out the candles, the staff claps dutifully and vanishes as they all dig in.

"What did you wish for?" Gabe asks. He stopped wishing on birthday candles and fallen stars years ago, but he wants Nate to still have that small spark of irrational hope alive inside him.

Nate pauses and glances at Alex. "If I told you, it wouldn't come true."

Gabe looks at them both and knows instinctively he's missing something. "That's a myth."

"Better safe than sorry," Alex chimes in, pointedly not looking at Gabe.

**

They walk back together as the sun sets and the lights of the city spark on. In the soft light it looks almost pretty; the trash and ugliness softened by the dying daylight.

Alex and Nate laugh and hang off each other, singing whatever bursts of song come to them at the top of their lungs. They look like teenagers, and it takes Gabe a moment to remember they are teenagers; it's easy to forget that he himself is barely legal, though he feels a thousand years old.

Ryland walks alongside Gabe with a look of pure fondness etched across his features. In another life he and Alex would be the poster boys for happy alternative families.

"What was that shit at dinner?" Gabe asks, thumbs hooked on his belt loops. It takes effort to walk like a normal human being and not piece of meat on display. It's hard to remember a time when it didn't.

Ryland cocks an eyebrow and smirks. Bastard. "Are you serious?"

"Would I be asking if I wasn't?" Gabe rolls his eyes as Nate and Alex launch into a butchered version of Bohemian Rhapsody that's made up of more unintelligible syllables than words.

"Gabe." Ryland bumps him with his elbow. "Come on. Don't be stupid. It doesn't come naturally to you."

Gabe doesn't know what the fuck to say to that and so says nothing.

**

Gabe walks with Nate to his room in one of the fucking rank, overcrowded halls where the new kids live until they prove themselves and earn the right to more space. They sleep four to a room, and it's almost as dangerous as the fucking streets for the drug deals and smacked out boys spasming on the floor.

"Forgot how shit it is down here," Gabe muses, smirking at the look Nate shoots. "Don't worry, you'll have your own corner and room soon. Just keep working those eyes."

"Yeah, well, I'm okay where I am," Nate says as he opens his door.

"Hey, Gabe?" Nate says, voice soft.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks." Nate smiles a little and looks down at his feet. "I haven't felt human in a while. It was nice."

Gabe tucks a loose strand of Nate's hair behind his ear. "Happy birthday, kid."

**

Gabe believes in karma, but not in the traditional sense of everything ends up equal in the end.

He believes that there's a price for any good thing that happens to him, like somehow his cosmic scale is unfairly slanted so he ends up heaped with all the shit the universe has to offer.

**

The John pulls up in something small and streamlined, with tinted windows and a bright red paint job that blatantly screams "overcompensating."

Nate mutates his laugh into a cough he hides behind his hand and Gabe smirks without fear of reprisal; he's not pretty enough to pull off sweet, but he's learned that a little attitude works just as well. Some think they want innocence and some think they want bad boys; Gabe knows all they really want is teeth and tongues, hands and skin and when they're coming they don't really give a shit who's receiving.

Gabe pushes off the wall as the window smoothly rolls down. "What can I do you for?"

The John's normal enough. Average size, from what Gabe can tell, dark hair slicked away from his face and deep set eyes. He runs his gaze over Gabe and it's hungry enough to make something give an uncomfortable little squirm in the pit of his stomach. He ignores it. Rent has to be paid.

"I want you for the night," the John says and, behind him, Nate makes a soft noise.

They're just street whores, but they still charge and the bill gets upped by time and kink. People don't ask for a whole night unless they've got cash to burn, and a need to make it last.

Gabe chuckles. "If you can pay, I'm all yours."

"Seven fifty."

Gabe almost swallows his motherfucking tongue. Seven fifty is enough to let he and Nate both stay in for the rest of the week and still have plenty to spare.

It's also a fucking siren in the back of Gabe's mind. There are rules to what they do, rules and undeniable, ugly truths. One of which is finding the line between how much you can take and how much you can earn. Figure out how far you can go, Pete had said, and then never go any farther than that, no matter how much they offer.

Gabe bites down on the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste the faint copper of blood and smiles. Fuck Pete. "Sure thing. Give me one second."

Questions are written bright and demanding in Nate's eyes, but Gabe ignores them. Nate is never going to take jobs like this if Gabe can help it. It takes a special kind of whore to cope with the bastards after blood and Gabe is one of those lucky few.

"I'm probably going to be the rest of the night," Gabe murmurs to Nate. "Stay on the corner, don't take any motel jobs. If something happens try to handle it, but if you can't, head for Ryland and Alex, they'll take care of it. Okay?"

Gabe can tell Nate wants to say no. "Gabe…"

"It's part of my job, Nate," Gabe murmurs, "This is my specialty."

"I don't understand," Nate mumbles back, looking past Gabe's shoulders to the car.

Gabe closes his eyes for a moment. "Be grateful for that," he says so low he doesn't know if Nate hears, then gets into the car and doesn't look back.

**

There are a couple motels in the area that only have prices listed by the hour and the night. Everyone knows their main clientele isn't people looking for a place to stay during vacation.

The John picks one further away than most, but not so far off the beaten path Gabe's hasn't been there before. The room's small and dank; one light bulb's completely dead and the other's dim and flickering.

The John's hand lands on Gabe's neck and tightens as the door swings shut behind him. He's taller than he looked in the car, though he's still an inch or so shorter than Gabe. His hand is rough and cold and Gabe knows what's coming. He's done it a hundred times before because, no matter how cold and shut down he gets, he could never wish it on anyone but himself.

It's a fucked up way of protecting the other boys, but, then again, Gabe's kind of a fucked up guy.

"Seven fifty gets me anything I want?"

Gabe lets his mind wander back to Nate's eyes.

"Anything you want."

**

He wants bruises and welts, marks on skin and scars that sear through to the bone.

Gabe takes it.

It doesn't take him long to realize there's no point in hiding groans and gasps behind fakes cries of ecstasy. The John gets off far more on the first.

**

It's morning by the time the John drops him back off on the corner; Nate's gone, so are Alex and Ryland, and as Gabe's knees give out and he hits the sidewalk, he's inordinately grateful for that minor blessing.

They probably don't realize how much he looks out for them, and he's not okay with them seeing him even a little broken.

He stays there for long minutes after the John's sped away, mindful of that fact that what is tolerated in the darkness can be dangerous in the light. Gabe's body throbs with pain, a low, steady pulse that beats along his nerves from spine to end. His clothes catch uncomfortably on his skin from dried blood.

"Fuck," he mumbles to the sidewalk, pressing his fingers into the dirty surface. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

**

_Gabe's new corner is a block down and over from the one he shared with Pete and he's smart enough to know that it's not half bad real estate, especially someone who's relatively unproven._

"You'll be fine," Pete says with a smirk. "You learned from the best."

"No, I didn't, I learned from you," Gabe counters and Pete laughs.

"Fucker. Look, just be smart." Pete's face softens and in a motion too quick for Gabe to track, he darts out and kisses Gabe on the cheek. His lips are chapped and warm and perfect. "You're special, but that can be dangerous. I'd miss your ass if anything happened to it."

Gabe nods and watches Pete walk away until he vanishes around the corner.

**

It's sheer force of will that gets him up and back to the stable; that, and the small comfort he finds in the thick wad of cash in his pocket.

Gabe takes the stairs slowly, hands clenched into white knuckled fists so tight he cuts moon shaped indentations into his palm. He passes a few of the other boys who know better than to say anything; their glances slide away from his face as soon as the truth registers, teeth digging into their bottom lip as they silently walk past.

Their whole world is ugly, but there's levels, variations as to what they endure. Everyone eventually learns it can always get worse.

**

William is sitting on Gabe's mattress with Nate curled up asleep beside him when the door squeaks open. Nate's mouth is slightly open and his brow is creased, like he's having bad dreams. Gabe feels an irrational stab of guilt and, for a moment, wishes them both away, into a place where they are safe and loved and not his responsibility. "Is he okay?"

"He's worried about you." William cards his fingers through Nate's hair and meets Gabe's eyes with nothing that even distantly resembles pity. "He'll learn."

Gabe lets the door fall shut with a quiet click and crosses the small space with a few broken, uncomfortable steps. "I hope so."

His skin is a patchwork of bruises, already turning varying shades of blue and purple, and shallow cuts slowly leaking blood. Gabe lets his clothes fall on the floor in a pathetic heap and takes a moment to breathe. He inhales and exhales and tries not to let his hands shake.

Gabe doesn't hear William get up, but he doesn't flinch when a hand lands between his shoulder blades, touch so soft it almost hurts more than if it had been pressed hard into the wounds.

"Sometimes I don't understand how you take this," William murmurs, pressing his forehead to Gabe's shoulder. His touch is unthinkingly gentle; Gabe can't count the number of times he's seen the same array of discolor across William's skin.

"How do you take it?"

"I close my eyes and float away," William says after a long beat of silence.

Gabe inhales and exhales slowly, counting the in/out of his breath and steady thump of his heart echoing in his ears, assuring him, taunting him that he is very much alive and it's not some kind of bad dream he can wake up from, some punishment for a lesser sin.

William reaches for a towel and starts to wipe away the blood. Gabe bits down hard on the inside of his cheek and relishes the sting of raw flesh. "Why did you let Nate in here?"

"I didn't have a choice," William replies. His touch is gentle, knowing. "He wouldn't go away. He said he'd wait outside for you if he had to."

Somehow that hurts more than burns and patterns cut into his skin. "I don't know what to do about him."

William smiles a sad, sweet little smile that Gabe barely catches from the corner of his eye. "I don't think there's anything you can do."

Gabe doesn't know what to say to that. "Bill?"

"Why do you let me take care of you when the Johns like this come?" William asks suddenly, folding up the smeared towel and setting it aside. Breathing hurts, and Gabe wishes for a moment he wasn't so fucking afraid of pills.

"Because you don't pity me." Gabe tucks a strand of William's hair behind his ear. "Ryland and Alex don't mean to, but they do. They feel bad for me. You…you're compassionate. Empathetic. It's just part of the job and you treat it that way."

"There you go," William whispers. "There's your answer."

"It's always fucking riddles all the sudden."

William grins and almost smiles. Behind them the mattress squeaks and groans as Nate shifts. "Gabe, I don't know Nate. I talked to him a little, but he was tired and fell asleep. But, I think you do the same thing for him. You make him feel human again."

Gabe looks over his shoulder and feels his chest tighten. "William."

"We're objects to everyone," William says softly, lacing their fingers. "We can be bought and sold and if we get broken we're replaceable. Sometimes we forget we're people still, underneath it all. I think you remind Nate of that."

William presses a kiss to Gabe's temple and leaves him alone, Nate sleeping quietly beside him.

**

Gabe stares and Nate until he knows he has to lay down before gravity and exhaustion make that decision for him.

He tries to stay on one side of the mattress, flat on his back, not moving except to breathe. The pain sinks down through his skin and settles around his insides, along the length of his bones; it's an ache that will last for days, prelude to scars that will never fade.

Nate, though…Nate rolls over and curls up against him, snuffling softly in his sleep.

Gabe pretends he doesn't notice the way the crease in Nate's forehead smoothes out once they're tucked together, and he pretends it doesn't make something loosen in his chest.

**

"Jesus fucking Christ."

Gabe's eyes flutter reluctantly open, dragging him back to the reality where he's strained and hurting

Dark's fallen and Nate hovers over him, face bleached white by the fluorescent streetlight filtering in through the single grimy window tucked high up in the corner. His eyes are wide and disbelieving, quietly and utterly horrified, palms splayed out across Gabe's chest, barely touching the mottled skin.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Gabe rasps, voice rough and thick from sleep.

"Gabe." Nate sounds like he's trying not to cry. "I'm sorry."

Somehow, Gabe manages to huff out a painful chuckle that sends dull pain throbbing across his stomach. "You didn't do anything."

Nate slides his fingers along the edge of Gabe's rib, tracing the rim of a cut deep enough to probably have earned stitches, though fucked if Gabe's going to the hospital. He doesn't deal well with good intentions and kind smiles because they don't amount to anything in the end.

"Not your job to take care of me," Gabe mumbles.

"You take care of me," Nate whispers to the darkness, bowing his head. He presses his face into Gabe's stomach, the damp of tears cool against his skin.

No one has cried for Gabe in a long time. Not Ryland or Alex, not William, and certainly not Gabe himself.

He lays a hand on the back of Nate's head and feels to the bottom of his soul he doesn't deserve the tears.

**

"You can't go out tonight," Nate mumbled as the shadows in the room lengthen from the dimming light. They're still laying together, Nate absently tracing nonsensical patterns across Gabe's stomach.

Gabe would laugh if it didn't hurt to breathe. "I know. You're not going either."

Nate's hand stills. "Yes, I am."

"No," Gabe counters as evenly as he can. "You're not. We're fine. How stupid do you think I am? It doesn't matter how charming or good looking a John is, he has to pay to do this to me. We're fine."

"How much?" Nate asks quietly, hopelessly. It's so fucking weird. The few times one of Gabe's boys have caught him in a moment of weakness, it all changes to greed at the mention of money. It's really not their fault; most of the young ones harbor the illusion of earning enough to get out free and clear.

Gabe smiles softly. "Seven fifty."

"God, Gabe."

And suddenly the emotion in his chest feels a little less like smug pride and a little more like regret and guilt. He shifts a little, springs creaked mournfully as sharp spikes of pain shoot along his muscles and skin. "It's my job."

"I know," Nate mumbles. "Go back to sleep."

Gabe obeys.

**

When Gabe opens his eyes again, it's late afternoon and the room is bathed in a haze of golden light that Gabe never gets to see anymore.

Nate's sitting cross legged on the floor next to the mattress. His hair's wet and curling around his face, and he's wearing soft gray sweatpants and a white tee shirt that stretches tight across his chest. He's got a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and a white bakery bag at his knee.

"I think I died in the night," Gabe mumbles, taking care to not move. "This looks like heaven."

"That was awful." Nate quirks his mouth in a half smile. "I figured since you've got the money, I might as well spend it."

"Thoughtful of you."

Gabe experimentally shifts his muscles and, Jesus God, he bites down hard enough on his lip to draw the faint copper taste of blood. Fuck, it hurts, it really fucking hurts. Nate looks at him and his brow creases in concern.

He sets down his coffee. "I got painkillers, too. Alex said most everyone has basic first aid stuff, but I figured it's better to have extra than none."

"No thanks." Gabe swallows and looks away. He's not going to answers questions, but he's not going to budge either. "I don't take pills."

"But-"

"Nate."

Nate closes his mouth and nods. "Yeah. Okay. Okay." He runs a hand through his hair and his fingers come away damp. God, Gabe wants to tangle his fingers in the wet strands, he wants to kiss the top of Nate's head and inhale the scent.

"Do I get coffee?" Gabe asks after a moment and Nate chuckles.

"Yeah. Of course."

**

Two days later Gabe can move enough to walk.

Small victories.

**

They end up at a park far enough away that Gabe's panting and about to fucking fall over and die by the time they get there. Days locked not leaving Gabe's room had them both stir crazy and snappish, so Nate finally hauled him up and decided they were going outside.

Nate makes him sit down as he spreads out a ratty blanket unearthed from God only knows where. It's probably crawling with mutant bacteria and bubonic plague, but still cleaner than their mattresses. They flop down next to each other, heads almost touching, staring up at the blue sky stretched out before them.

Joggers run past, parents with babies in strollers and toddlers holding their hands, a few older people with paper bags of bread crumbs for the birds. It gets steadily warmer as time wears on, bringing forth the summer heat.

"Can I ask you something?"

Gabe's eyes are closed and he's warm and about to fucking fall asleep he's so comfortable, which is probably the only reason he says, "Yeah."

"What's your last name?"

"What?" Gabe cracks open his eyes and glances at Nate. Sunlight dapples across his face, eyes half lidded and oddly content.

"Your last name," Nate repeats with a half smile. "I realized that I don't your last name. I don't really know anything about you."

For a hell of a long time, Gabe hasn't told anyone his last name. It's just easier that way. "Saporta. Gabe Saporta."

"Saporta." Nate repeats the word slowly, rolling the r in exaggerated ridiculousness. "Do you have a middle name?"

"Yes," Gabe replies. "But fuck this. If you get to ask me questions then I get to ask you questions."

Nate shrugs. "Okay."

"How old are you?" Gabe asks without thinking and Nate stiffens, which is more of a truthful answer than Gabe knows Nate is going to actually say. At his birthday, they'd told the waitress he was celebrating the big 1-8. Gabe's almost certain that's a lie.

"I feel older than I am chronologically," Nate says carefully. That, Gabe can understand. "What does your tattoo mean?"

Gabe goes still. He still forgets, sometimes, that the words are there, etched in black lines against his skin beneath his shoulder blade, which is pretty fucking ironic considering how pissed Lucas had been when he found it. The merchandise isn't supposed to mark itself, that's what the clients are for.

"It's Peter Pan, right?" Nate continues quietly. "Second star to the right. That's…it's how you get to Neverland."

"Ask something else," Gabe says, voice low and flat.

Nate's brow creases, but he obeys. "Um…how old are you?"

It's easier, but still not that easy. Gabe has no reason to lie anymore. He refused go back into the system when he had the chance, no matter what any well meaning bleeding heart with visions of an eleventh hour happy family adoption dancing in their head said, and now he can't. "Almost nineteen. Where do you come from?"

Nate rolls onto his stomach and pillows his head on folded arms. "Nowhere. You?"

"I came out of the desert," Gabe says in a deadpan, "After springing fully formed from the body of a snake."

Nate laughs out loud and suddenly overt truth isn't important. There's a thread of reality beneath the silly lies and it's better this way, Gabe things, it's better to hear Nate laugh at his absurdity than to see him cry from the truth.

**

Nate falls asleep.

Gabe lays on his side and watches, tracing the rise and fall of his chest, counting each breath like it's something precious.

**

Monday they pay up and Nate accepts the bills peeled off the crumpled stack with a look of faint distaste etched on his face.

"Money's money," Gabe says obliquely.

"I know," Nate mumbles. "But I don't have to like it."

**

_Gabe sees the new kid on a Thursday. The first thing he thinks is that Lucas must have lost his fucking mind, because there's no way in hell he's going to make it more than a few weeks before breaking._

He's short and chubby, but oddly enough it works for him. He's got a trucker hat pulled down low over his face, and red tinged hair. Gabe's skin start to itch as he saunters over, prickling with something he can't explain.

"Gabe." Pete breaks into a wide smile Gabe hasn't seen before. "This is Patrick."

**

Getting back to the corner is strange, a confusing mash of emotion that's part resigned distaste for the reality of what he does, interspersed with a strange thread of relief that he's back to doing the only thing he knows. Gabe thinks, sometimes, that if he couldn't whore himself out, he doesn't know what the fuck else he'd do.

Nate's a little quiet, thumbs hooked on his pockets, offering half smiles and low laughs to Gabe's words. He falls back into old habits, shrinking back against the wall and blending in with the stained brick. He lets his hair fall in front of his, almost obscuring the fact that he spends most of the night watching Gabe.

Gabe doesn't quite know what that means.

He says as much to Alex and Ryland at some point, when Gabe saunters over to their domain while Nate negotiates prices for a John who's being a little vague on the details of what exactly he wants to happen in the requested two or three hours.

"It's fucking strange," Gabe says and Alex and Ryland exchange a look. "Jesus, what?"

"Gabe, you fucking idiot," Ryland laughs, shaking his head.

Gabe narrows his eyes. "Fuck you."

"No, wait." Alex lays a hand on Gabe's elbow as he starts off. "Hold on. Honestly, Gabe, you're not blind, think about it. What happened to you?"

"Rough John," Gabe recycles obediently, impatiently.

Alex nods. "Yeah. Gabe, he's watching out for you. Taking care of you."

The idea is so utterly and completely ridiculous Gabe lets out a startled laugh without meaning to. No one takes care of him, not since Pete, and that all collapsed with such stunning, destructive brilliance, Gabe hasn't allowed anyone to do the same since.

"No, he's not."

Gabe looks at Nate as he crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head, takes a step back from the car. He lets out a small sigh; he'd known the John was bad news, but he'd needed to know Nate could figure that out for himself.

Nate glanced up, caught sight, and smiled tightly.

"Gabe." Alex laid a hand on his shoulder. "Yes, he is."

Something that can't be described blossoms in Gabe's chest.

Panic and joy, want and hurt; it defies words and sense and scares him to his fucking core.

**

"I take care of people," Gabe says after a too long stretch of silence leaning against the wall.

Nate glances up with a confused little smile etched on his face. "I've noticed."

"People don't take care of me."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The look in Nate's eyes dares Gabe to contradict him, c'mon, you bastard, tell me I'm lying, and Gabe's too weak and too enthralled to open his mouth and tear down the carefully constructed lies.

**

The problem is that Gabe only takes care of the people that mean something to him, William, Ryland and Alex, and now Nate.

William he can't love specifically because of Siska, Ryland and Alex were made for each other in some fucked up perversion of destiny that forges shards of joy in the midst of a world that's nothing but ugliness.

But Nate. Gabe…could love Nate.

Fuck.

**

Gabe goes up to the roof, leans against the edge and smokes as the sun rises, staining the sky in streaks of red and orange filtered through the smog. He looks but doesn't see, thinks in the same circle of memory and regret he can't escape, no matter how much time passes.

Now it's Nate. Everything goes back to his eyes, the sweep of his hair, the touch of his hands splayed across Gabe's hurts as though he has some power to make it all better.

But not always.

Once there was Pete leaning against the brick wall in tight jeans with his shirt up just high enough to show the heavy black lines of a tattoo. Black hair in his eyes and a smirk, small little Pete staring at Gabe, a shit scared kid, too tall and too skinny to ever really make it.

Pete, who taught Gabe that he couldn't be coy and innocent, he didn't have the face for it. He could be something else, something more valuable to the men who used their bodies and liked to think they could have their minds. Pete, who laughed and fell apart in the same moment without anyone noticing. Pete, who Gabe came to see as a friend, until the day he looked over and there was nothing friendly about the way his heart stuttered in his chest.

In the beginning there was Pete and Gabe, and it wasn't good exactly, but it was something.

Then there was Pete and Patrick. Patrick who had no business being on the streets, who didn't last long enough for anyone to ever learn what tragic downward spiral left him there, and it was perfect and brilliant, like the spark of a match flaring.

Gabe flicks the cigarette away.

Pete and Patrick are dead.

**

He hears the door open with a quiet complaining squeak of hinges and knows without turning around that it's Nate's footsteps crossing the roof.

Nate leans next to him, resting on his elbows as he stares out over the city sprawled beneath them in an ugly patchwork of concrete and steel. He's tired, eyes smudged with faint black shadows that match the faint beginnings of a bruise beneath the collar of his shirt. He's so fucking beautiful.

"You okay?"

Gabe almost laughs because the true answer is a fucking novel of words, twisted and tangled to the point where he's not really sure they can ever be completely unwound. "Fine. You?"

Nate chuckles tiredly. "Peachy."

They fall into silence and Gabe wound tight, too aware of the heat seeping off Nate's body, the specks of black polish flaking off his thumbnail, the way his eyes look almost golden in the light. "Why are you up here?"

Nate stills and looks at him. "You seemed…a little weird tonight. I wanted to make sure you weren't planning on jumping."

Bile rises in Gabe's throat. He wouldn't do that. The irony would be too fucking much. "I'm not gonna break, Nate. I don't need to be taken care of."

"Maybe not."

Hesitantly, Nate reaches out and circles his fingers around Gabe's wrist. He has calluses on the pads of his fingers and in faint stripes along his palm. Gabe's mouth goes dry and distantly he remembers that Nate is a drummer, was a drummer, what-the-fuck-ever; he still carries the tangible mark of what once was.

He should pull away. He doesn't.

"Gabe?"

Nate's voice is soft and wondering, afraid, so very afraid. He licks his lips and Gabe has to wonder if this is punishment for something he did or didn't do, for a sin he can't remember in the grand, disgusting scheme of all that he has done and all that he has allowed to happen through inaction.

He sees the intention in Nate's eyes a split second before it happens, and Gabe thinks that look, that single image of Nate, will be with him until he dies.

Nate kisses him.

Images explode behind Gabe's eyes.

Pete laughing and Pete crying, Pete staring with dead eyes as a cascade of pills skittering across the floor; Patrick's shy smile and the sound of him screaming and the silence of no one caring about a whore. Nate in the yellow glow of the street lamp, untouched, then mouth raw as the innocence gets chipped away. Gabe watches, Gabe always watches and all around him the world falls apart again and again.

When he can move, Gabe does the only thing that will save them both.

He shoves Nate off, slamming the heels of his hands into Nate's chest hard enough for him to stumble back. Gabe can taste Nate on his mouth, and he wants it so fucking bad, even as Nate looks at him with volumes of apology written in his eyes.

"Gabe."

"Go." Gabe's voice is rough, hands clenched into fists because he won't go down this road. Not again, never again. "Get the fuck away."

Nate shivers. "Gabe, I…"

"Go!"

The word echoes, imbued with hurt from nothing Nate has done, but he still flinches with guilt and runs. The door bangs shut with a sound like judgment and Gabe slumps down against the wall, not crying.

**

Gabe lays curled on his side, staring at the wall.

He doesn't flinch when someone bangs on the door. He's been expecting it; God knows he's not the only who's got Nate under their skin.

"Gabe." It's Alex.

He closes his eyes and eventually Alex gets the message and fucks off.

**

Nate's on the corner when Gabe saunters up, falling back in the same goddamn, motherfucking bad habits Gabe fucking got him out of weeks ago. He's huddled against the damn brick wall, more like one of the homeless kids who jack garbage out of the cans and call it food, sleeping on benches in the park, pretending they're better than Gabe because at least they have their dignity.

Gabe takes his place and fuck if it isn't the easiest thing in the world to lounge there like he's fine, like he's got nothing better to do on a Friday night. His insides feel like someone's nailed him in the gut with steel toed boots and single minded determination to hurt.

"Gabe," Nate says after a long beat of silence. "I'm sorry."

The bitch of it is he doesn't have any idea what he's apologizing for.

"Don't," Gabe says through the smirk. Dark is falling and it's a Friday night, and it takes everything he has to keep going as it is. "Fucking don't."

Nate ducks his head.

The cars pulls up, a fucking SUV plastered with my child is an honor student stickers and Gabe almost starts laughing at the John sitting in the driver's seat in a goddamn bowling shirt. He wonders if he tells his wife he's going to the alley so he can soothe himself with the knowledge he's only misrepresenting, not out and out lying.

"I don't understand," Nate murmurs as Gabe opens the door.

"No." He doesn't look back. "You don't."

**

He gets back and Nate's gone.

Gabe thinks it's probably best to work that way. Fuck knows it's easier.

**

_"I think I love him," Pete whispers as they lay together in the darkness, his fingers tangled in Gabe's hair. "I mean, Jesus, Gabe, I think I actually fucking love him."_

Gabe tightens his arms around Pete and bites down hard enough on his lip to taste copper.

**

Ryland catches up to him walking back to the Stable. He and Nate didn't spent more than a half hour standing on the corner together, thought Gabe could feel Nate's eyes running up and down his body for each of those minutes, like he was trying to find answers in the cock of Gabe's head and the set of his hips.

"Are you going to tell me what the fuck happened, or do I have to guess?" Ryland asks flatly. "Because Nate's freaking the hell out and Alex is worried and somehow I have a feel it all goes back to you."

"Shit tends to," Gabe snaps.

Unfortunately, Ryland's not as easily deterred as Alex, or maybe it's simply that he hasn't known Gabe as long. There's a strangeness to the understand Alex and Gabe have, a history that precedes anything but themselves. Ryland falls in step, hands shoved in his pockets.

"That's not an answer."

"What the fuck do you want me to say?"

"Try the truth, asshole." Ryland elbows him hard. "Jesus, Gabe."

"He…" Gabe stops.

He kissed me, he kissed me, he fucking kissed me and I wanted to kiss him back.

"He went somewhere he shouldn't have."

It's still not an answer, but Gabe has nothing else to offer.

**

William's dozing on Gabe's mattress, shirt rucked up enough for Gabe to see the jagged lines of scars that runs along his spine.

Gabe strips and lies down; he presses his face to William's neck and breathes, slowly inhaling and exhaling. His hands might be shaking, just a little.

"It's okay," William mumbles, carding his fingers through Gabe's hair and, goddamnit, the whole world's been flipped upside down.

**

Late in the afternoon Siska comes looking for William. He stands over the mattress, picking at the skin of his left palm with the opposite hand. Being in Gabe's room makes him uncomfortable, that much is obvious, and Gabe's well aware there's little lost love between them.

Siska might really love William and it pisses him off, the inexplicable thing that exists between William and Gabe.

"I can wake him up," Gabe offers flatly. William's still curled around him, dead to the world.

"Don't." Siska jerks his head. "Let him sleep."

"Fine."

Siska hesitates for a moment, like he wants to leave, but can't. Gabe cocks his head and stares; he's too fucking tired to deal with this shit.

"Your kid," Siska says eventually, "Is asking questions."

Gabe's heart squeezed painfully. "About?"

Siska sneers, just a little. "About you and the past."

There's an odd note in Siska's eyes and it takes Gabe a moment to remember that he's been around long enough to remember Pete and Patrick. He'd been new then, very new and young, wide eyes and scared in the background. "What are people saying?" They both knows it's less a question than a demand, a plea, a favor.

"Nothing." Siska shrugs. "No one's gonna risk pissing you off for a kid."

Gabe would laugh at that. Rumors can be such a fucking bitch sometimes and what's lost in translation, being able to take it versus dishing it out, is so goddamn funny.

"Okay."

Siska shakes his head. "Look, fuck if I know what's going on with you two, but I do know the kid's fucking miserable and I know Alex and Ryland are working their way toward being pissed and I know Bill's worried."

Gabe can feel his gaze harden. "And?"

Anger doesn't phase Siska. He's got too much of his own quietly simmering away beneath the thin surface of his skin. "Look, fucker, the kid doesn't know. And sooner or later someone's gonna say…his name."

Siska leaves and Gabe closes his eyes, but he can't fall back asleep.

**

Sooner or later turns out to be a week and a half.

They're hovering on their corner on a Monday, the dead day, and Gabe's thinking about cutting out early and making up for it with a couple special jobs later in the week because he can't take Nate's eyes being so close. He's only fucking human.

"Who's Pete?" Nate says quietly, flatly.

No one has said the name aloud to Gabe in three fucking years and suddenly all the scars are ripped open, stitches and patches torn away.

"Fuck you," Gabe says, low and hard and it doesn't fucking matter that Nate doesn't know the intricate details and the brutal truths, he understands there are lines Gabe lives by and he knows, he has to know, that he crossed the one nonnegotiable one and all bets are off.

"People whisper that name," Nate continues, voice shaking just a little. "But that's all. No one will say anything else."

"Stop." It almost sounds like a growl. "You don't know."

"Explain it," Nate says and it's almost begging.

"Why would I?" Gabe snaps. "You're just another fucking kid I got shouldered with until Lucas knows you're not going to get yourself killed. You don't fucking mean anything. You're just a fucking annoyance until I can get rid of you."

Gabe can see Nate break, shatter into a hundred thousand irreparably broken pieces and Gabe thinks he has never hurt anyone as badly in his life.

**

"You incredible fucking bastard." Gabe's standing shirtless in the doorway, staring at Alex. "Why would you say that to him?"

"He kissed me," Gabe replies after a beat. "I'm not doing this again."

Alex closes his eyes and swallows hard. He wraps his arms around Gabe's shoulders and Gabe stands there, trying not to feel anything.

**

And life goes on.

Nate stops talking, stops looking; his face hollows out and permanent circles appear beneath his eyes, and bruises gleam on his arms. Gabe doesn't ask.

Gabe stares to the dark streets, to the lights that glimmer faintly amid the darkness. He takes clients he knows he shouldn't and relishes the pain as a just punishment.

Karma, circle of the life, you reap what you sow, treat others the way you want to be treated, whatever.

It's better, he tells himself in a hallow lie that has to become the truth, it's right.

The days tick by, bleeding into weeks, the moon waxes and wanes and nothing changes, nothing ever changes.

**

Gabe dreams.

No.

Gabe has nightmares.

**

_"Pete says he thinks he can get us out." Patrick stands on the roof with Gabe, head tipped back to stare at the stars sketched out above them._

Gabe takes a drag of his cigarette and watches the tip flare bright, dirty orange in the darkness. "Pete's an idiot sometimes."

Patrick laughs. "I know, but I think he's serious."

"Yeah." Gabe sure as fuck hopes not. You can't get out, not without paying a higher price than anyone can bear.

**

Alex drops small comments, tidbits of news and information that amount to the same thing Gabe was trying to avoid coming more and more true with every passing day.

"He's quiet all the time," Alex says hesitantly, "I mean, Nate wasn't all that talkative with anyone but you, really. But now it's like he's mute."

Gabe runs a hand through his hair and feels the words sit heavily on his tongue. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry. "What do you want me to do, Alex?"

Alex shifts beside him on the mattress and drops his head on Gabe's shoulder. Alex showed up back when Gabe was still sharing a corner with Pete and for that Gabe is more grateful than he could ever say. It means he never got the chance to break Alex like William and Nate.

"He loves you, Gabe."

It hurts. God, it just fucking hurts.

"No," Gabe mumbles, "He doesn't. He can't."

**

And then one night Nate doesn't come to the corner at all.

Raw panic twists in Gabe's stomach, and a reel replays across the back of his eyelids of all the things that can happen to a whore, all the ways to die alone with no one caring.

**

"Did something happen?" He feels close to panic, raw energy thrumming painfully beneath his skin.

Ryland looks up and folds his arms across his chest. "Can you be a little more specific?"

Gabe clenches his jaw. Ryland is not an idiot, he's just a sadistic motherfucker who lacks the patience and sympathy of Alex. "Fuck you, Ryland."

"He got his own corner," Ryland says after a moment.

Gabe doesn't know how to respond to that, what to say or how to feel. It should be vindication or relief; he got them what they both wanted, what they both needed. It's been hell standing six inches from Nate night after night without ever being able to touch him. Instead, he feels nothing but faint fear.

"Gabe."

He swallows. "What?"

"Remember what I said about you being stupid?" Ryland says quietly.

Gabe turns and walks away. Ryland doesn't fucking get it. He is, for once, doing the goddamn smart thing.

**

He sees Nate walking back to the stable, hovering on a new corner like he's not sure he really belongs there.

**

Gabe's not surprised to find William in his room when he finally gets back.

"If you keep coming here, Siska's going to think you don't like him anymore and probably knee me in the balls." Gabe mumbles, to tired to put much heat into the words as he lays down. William's got knees drawn up to his chest, arms locked around his shins.

"He won't if I tell him not to." William tucks his chin onto his knees. "And I'm not staying long. I just wanted to see you."

Gabe raises an eyebrow. "The fuck, William?"

"Nate." William shrugs and laces his fingers in Gabe's. He drags his thumb along the ridge of Gabe's knuckles, nail catching on the chapped skin. "News travels fast."

"Right."

"You okay?"

Gabe snorts. "Everybody keeps asking me that. I'm fine. I mean, fuck, he's just another kid. There's been a couple of them and he isn't special." The lies feel uncomfortable and insubstantial on Gabe's tongue.

"Maybe, but Nate doesn't see it like that." William tightens his fingers, not enough to hurt, but enough for Gabe to feel the strength in the spidery appendages. "I mean, you know what it's like. We all fall a little in love with the one who teaches us what the hell we're doing out here. The one who keeps us from getting beaten up more often than we have to. The one who keeps us from getting killed."

Pain pulses behind Gabe's eyes and he wants to sleep, he wants Alex and Ryland and William to go away and stop trying to get into his head to fix the machinery, the cogs and screws of his mind. "William."

"I'm just saying that…the fact that he loves you isn't that hard to understand." William leans over and brushes a feather light kiss on the tip of Gabe's nose.

"I'm a fuck up," Gabe counters distantly.

"Yeah." William stands and smiles softly. "So is everyone else in this place."

**

It's raining when the car pulls up, not hard enough for Gabe to seriously consider calling it a night and heading for the shelter and relative warmth of the stable, but it's still pervasively cold and just a little miserable. Gabe presses himself as close to the wall as he can and pulls his hands into the sleeves of his hoodie. Fucking winter.

The John rolls down the window and Gabe pushes off the wall with his foot. He's nothing special, middle aged, bland faced, in a cheap and rumpled suit. Gabe can see the glint of a wedding band on his left hand and let's out a little sigh of relief. The married ones are easy, so wracked by the guilt of what they're doing they can barely get off, much less worry about getting into anything too elaborately kinky.

Gabe slides in and the John takes off without a word. The quiet clearly makes the him uncomfortable, his fingers are white knuckled on the steering wheel as the windshield wipers evenly swish back and forth.

They drive past Nate's corner and Gabe can see a car idling on the street. Nate's leaning over, arms crossed tightly over his chest, hair damp and clinging to his forehead and neck. He looks cold and tired and Gabe has to bite down on his lip to keep himself from telling the John to stop.

"Not mine," Gabe murmurs softly, running a finger over the ridge of his knuckles, skin cold and stiff from the hours, months, years on a corner.

"Pardon?"

Gabe pulls his gaze from the streets rushing by outside. "Nothing."

**

The John doesn't want much, just Gabe on his knees and Gabe in his ass.

It's easy, almost boring, and every time Gabe closes his eyes he sees Nate, drops of water slipping down his cheeks.

**

The rain has picked up as they drive back. It spatters against the windows and roof in a steady, monotonous drone, accented by the squeak of the wipers. Gabe traces the outline of the money in his pocket and decides to go back to the stable as soon as the John drops him off. It's too cold and too wet to stay on the corner, wishing and waiting for clients who aren't going to come.

Gabe climbs out of the car without a word. This customer doesn't want him to flirt, doesn't want to hear that he's a stud, a great lay, the best fucking thing Gabe's ever had. He just wants to get away as fast as he can, back to the tired wife who put the wedding band on his finger, and maybe a couple of ungrateful kids who make up the fabric of a life he probably never thought he'd come to hate.

Gabe shivers as he watches the car drive away, headlights vanishing into the pervasive gloom. It's cold, so very fucking cold. Before long the rain will turn to sleet and then snow, the worst time of year for him. Standing on a corner for hours is never exactly a good time, but standing on a corner with snow piling up around your feet while bitter wind whistles down the streets, cutting through layers of clothing to bite at skin is just that much worse.

"Gabe!" Ryland's voice cuts through Gabe's trailing thoughts.

Something blossoms in Gabe's stomach, curling and painful because he hears the note in Ryland's voice, the thread of something that sounds very much like raw panic. Ryland's running toward him, face pale and eyes wide.

His mind stutters to Alex, sweet Alex who claims he can take care of himself but really can't.

"Ryland." Gabe takes off, meeting him in the middle of the empty street. "What's wrong? Where's Alex?"

Ryland shakes his head and circles his fingers around Gabe's wrist. His hold is painfully tight. "It's not Alex. Come on."

Gabe stops breathing. "Jesus, what the fuck, Ryland?"

Ryland stills, breathing hard. His fingers are freezing, almost painfully cold and tight around Gabe's wrist. Something dark and rusty brown is smeared across the cuffs and hem of his shirt, dark and sticky looking. Gabe's chest tightens, his heart skipping and stuttering painfully in his chest. No. Not again.

"Gabe."

"What the fuck's happening?" Gabe's voice is low and tight; he doesn't sound like himself.

"He took some John," Ryland gasps, shaking his head. "We didn't see. He's hurt. Bad. Alex and William took him to the clinic. Gabe, just, fuck, come on."

"Who?" He knows, he already knows.

"Nate."

**

The clinic's small, crammed awkwardly between a liquor store and a twenty-four hour adult arcade. Gabe's been there more times than he wants to remember, once or twice for himself when a particularly inspired customer managed to push him beyond him limits, but more often holding up William when a John crossed the line from fantasy to reality.

The doctors and nurses are overworked and underpaid; most start out with good intention and grand dreams of fixing those who unwillingly trickle through the doors when their bodies reach the absolute limits of what they can take, but those dreams die in the face of reality. They don't want help and, even if they did, accepting it would only cause more problems.

Gabe feels like his mind has short circuited when Ryland pulls him through the front door.

Nate knows how to read what Johns want. Gabe taught him that, taught him through the patchwork of bruises slammed into his own skin, bone deep and lingering. Nate knows not to take the ones who want to hurt. He knows to send them to Gabe because that is what Gabe does, he takes it so others don't have to.

William and Alex stand by the front desk; Alex has his face pressed into William's chest and his shoulders are shaking as William rubs a circle along the length of William's spine. Ryland keeps lets go of Gabe's wrist as William mumbles something in Alex's ear and he looks up, face streaked with the tears and gratefully falls into Ryland's arms.

"You came," William murmurs.

"What happened?"

William flinches and looks away as Ryland and Alex look at each other, faces silent and drawn. Gabe has done this before, he has looked before, stared at silent faces who have answers they are afraid to offer and, god fucking damnit, he's not going to do this again. He can't fucking do this again.

"What happened!?" Gabe's voice echoes, hard and half broken.

"They dumped him," William says, wrapping his arms around his waist. "The drove up and dumped him on the corner. He was bleeding and unconscious and we don't know what they did to him."

"I told him not to do that," Gabe mumbles, clenching his hands into fists. "I told him."

"Gabe." William tentatively lays a hand on Gabe's arm and he flinches away without thinking.

"Where is he?"

"They took him in the back," Alex says quietly. "We haven't seen him since."

Gabe breathe, can't think, and he's on his knees before he even realizes he's falling.

**

Gabe doesn't know how long they sit in the waiting room, Alex leaning against Ryland, William collapsed in on himself.

Time takes on a strange plastic quality; moments linger for what seems like hours and minutes slip through his hands like water and Gabe can't think beyond Nate's eyes crinkled at the corners with laughter, Nate's hands splayed across his chest, Nate's damp hair clinging to his skin.

This is his fault, his fucking fault.

The old memories circle and crowd in, old, long buried moments clashing with what's happening. Gabe's hands shake no matter how tightly he presses them together.

Gabe remembers the feel of Nate's lips, chapped and cool against his, mouth raw at the edges from a long Saturday night and that bleeds into the feel Pete's mouth pressed for a moment against his forehead, offering some kind of strange blessing, an invocation for protection against the harsh truth of what they live.

His mind runs through the things he has seen and the worse things he hasn't seen but has heard whispered in the dark, a warning to those who cling to the belief that it can't get worse. There is what he himself has endured and what he knows would be enough to break him.

Belts, fists, teeth, knives, ropes; it's a list that breaks bones and rends flesh and Gabe feels bile rise, painfully acidic in his throat.

Nate. Gabe has seen the aftereffects on his own skin and those hurts imposed on Nate is more than he can take.

**

Dr. McCoy is tall and lanky with tattoos and piercing that seem totally at odds with his faded scrubs and worn stethoscope looped around his neck. Gabe knows him and likes him as much as he can for all the times he's sewn William back together, and found free painkillers.

When he emerges from the back, William goes utterly still and Alex inhales sharply, tightening his hold on Ryland. Gabe doesn't move; he couldn't, even if he wanted to.

For a long moment they exist in silence, the doctor looking at them with something in his eyes that feels like pity, but isn't. It's deep, uncomprehending empathy and sadness. Gabe's nails dig into his palms, cutting into half healed scars and he thinks maybe it should worry him that he doesn't feel anything.

"He's pretty fucking beat up," Dr. McCoy says, "We're gonna keep him here overnight at least."

Gabe watches the contraction of William's throat as he swallows. Alex stiffen beside him, pressing deeper and closer, more desperate, into Ryland. They're all very aware of what Dr. McCoy didn't say, that Nate's going to be just fine, don't worry kids, he'll be good as new in a couple days.

"Okay," William finally says, because someone has to speak and Gabe's words, if they can even be called something that coherent, are painfully trapped somewhere in his chest.

Dr. McCoy nods and turns, heading back into the world of straight corridors and antiseptic smells. Nate is back there, Gabe thinks, Nate is back there on a hospital bed, growing wires and tubes, broken and bruised in a way for which Gabe can never fully atone for. Dully he realizes that money is due to Lucas in two days and there's going to be hell to pay if all five of them are short.

Gabe stands without thinking and William jumps a little.

He can't stay in the waiting room surrounded by desperately frightened, hurting swathes of humanity, all looking for answers and healing. Gabe doesn't try to fix people because he's no good at it; all his efforts to repair invariably hurt more William is living proof of that. Nate is suffering because of him, and the only thing Gabe knows to do is get back on the corner and pray that what he makes will be enough to keep them all.

He will never look at Nate again, of that much he is absolutely certain. He knows that even after all of this, Nate willstill forgive him and that would hurt worse than any hatred ever could.

"Where are you going?" Alex says, voice shaking just a little.

Gabe pauses mid step and looks over his shoulder, hoping his eyes show a determination he doesn't feel. "Back to the street, Alex, where the fuck else would I go?"

Something hard blossoms in Alex's eyes and he pushed away from Ryland, hurling himself onto still unsteady feet. His entire side is smeared in thick, rusty streaks of drying red and, god fucking damnit, Gabe is not going to be sick, he's not.

"You can't. You need to stay here."

"Why?" Gabe turns to Alex.. "What the fuck does it matter if I stay or go?"

"Fuck you, Gabe." Alex's eyes harden. "Nate's hurt and you're just gonna go back to your stupid corner and go on with life like nothing's wrong? You're not that cruel."

Wanna put money on that? Gabe balls his hands into fists because he can be cruel when he needs to be. It's better for Nate to never look at him again, because then hurt of being abandoned, of being rejected will fade. The hurt of staying with Gabe will be the hurt if Nate getting killed.

"Look, someone's gotta be out there," Gabe snaps. "We pay up soon, in case you've forgotten."

"I haven't forgotten." Alex meets him, steps forward and Gabe thinks he's maybe never seen Alex so hopelessly, helplessly furious in his entire fucking life. "But, Jesus, there has to be something more important and he needs you."

There are lots of things Gabe can think of that are more important than fucking Lucas and his boys, handing over the wads of crumpled bills like it's something other than the summation of so many lives. God knows Nate is more important, and if Alex can't understand that's the reason Gabe has to walk away while he still can, then that's Alex's failing and not his own.

"That is not my fault," Gabe says and the bitterness in his tone surprises them all. "It's not my fucking fault what he feels. He should never have been on the streets in the first place and if he doesn't end up dead or so hurt that he's useless this time, it's just going to happen again, because that's just the fucking way things work!"

Gabe can see the moment of understanding dawn in Alex's eyes; the instant he goes from wondering if maybe the past has something to do with the present to understanding that, for Gabe, what already happened and what is happening are so intertwined there's no separating them.

"Jesus, Gabe, he's still alive," Alex yells. "He's not fucking Patrick!"

And something inside Gabe snaps.

His body moves without conscious direction, without the forward impetus of though; it's all anger and hurt, years of not saying that name and not seeing that face except in dreams that become nightmares, Patrick's screams echoing again and again in his mind.

Gabe moves and it all becomes blurry. Alex twists and crumples to the floor, Ryland comes up out of his chair faster than Gabe would have thought possible and William is suddenly at his side, wrapping his arms tight around Gabe's chest. His knuckles hurt, a biting sting of pain that races jaggedly along the skin.

Alex looks up at him from the floor, blood trickling sluggishly from the corner of his mouth, cheek already starting to swell, and it isn't anger in his gaze, it's deep, immutable heartbreak.

Gabe wrenches himself out of William's arms and runs.

**

He might be crying, he doesn't know.

Gabe doesn't go back to the corner because he can't stand to be touched. He goes to the stable, past his room, up to the roof and, for the first time, he wonders how far down it would be if he jumped.

Eventually the adrenaline wears off and the ache sets in. Gabe sits on the edge and stares out, brushing his thumb over his knuckles hard enough to send tendrils of pain ghosting up his wrist.

**

No one knows exactly what happened, but the rumors spread anyway; whispered in the stairwells, passed between the boys. Pete and Patrick, Gabe hears murmured outside his door, they did something. Lucas is…he's not happy.

Gabe sits in the darkness and shakes.

"Stupid," Gabe murmurs to the emptiness around him, "Stupid, stupid, stupid."

**

"Gonna jump?"

Siska's voice cuts through the memories, and Gabe flinches. "Thinking about it."

"Pretty fucking selfish at this point, don't you think?" Siska drops down next to Gabe, but doesn't touch him at all. The first hints of dawn are beginning to lighten the sky, but Gabe knows damn well it's early enough that Siska should still be working.

"I'm kind of a selfish ass," Gabe mumbles. "Why are you here?"

"Mostly because William asked." Siska shrugs. "And because Nate's a nice enough kid and, when you're not being a complete dick, you're not bad."

Gabe feels too raw to be talking to Siska, who abrades him enough without the thought of Nate in a hospital bed hovering over him. "If I told you to fuck off, would you?"

Siska snorts, a surprisingly honest sound. "Wish I could. But William asks and I do."

"Yeah." Gabe knows how that goes. "What the fuck do you want?"

"Good question." Siska runs a hand through his hair and glances at Gabe from the corner of his eye. "Word is you decked Alex. Which, honestly, I'm surprised Ryland didn't rip your balls off, but whatever."

"Yeah, well." The excuse that Alex said something he shouldn't have feels hollow and wrong on Gabe's tongue.

"Look, I'm not good at subtle, gentle shit. That's what William's for, but there are times when subtle just isn't fucking enough, especially when people make the conscious decision to be obtuse."

"And?"

"Okay." Siska meets his gaze. "You know Nate loves you, right? Not like puppy crush kind of shit, is actually ass over tits in love with you?"

Yes.

"He can't be." Gabe wishes he could look away from the truth in Siska's eyes. "I won't let him."

Siska snorts again. "Well, that's not something you get really to control, asshole. Whether you like it or not, Nate's done for you. And I'm gonna take a stab in the dark and say you might be a little love back. I don't think you'd be this fucked up if you weren't."

"You don't know me," Gabe says. It's less an accusation and more wonder that Siska, of all the fucking people in the world, should be able to get inside his head.

"I've got William," Siska replies like that some kind of explanation. "You're not as hard to read as you think."

"And?" Gabe asks. "So? Therefore? Nothing changes."

"God, you're a prick when you want to be. You know what you have a tendency to forget?" Siska rolls his eyes and leans in. "You were not the only one there when Patrick died. You were not the only one there when Pete died. You were not the only one who had to deal with that shit. Yeah, maybe you felt it more than most of us, but we all heard and we all felt. Monopolizing on pain is kind of a shitty thing to do."

Gabe's mouth drops open but nothing comes out.

"Speechless?" Siska smirks and Gabe distantly realized he's just as comfortable saying this as Gabe is hearing it. "Look, I don't really like you and you don't really like me, but for some reason William loves the both of us, so I'm saying this because he'd want me to. Life is not as hard as you make it out to be. He loves you. And, I'm assumg here, but you love him. It's pretty basic math; a plus b equals c."

Siska stands and Gabe grabs his hand without thinking. "You remember Pete and Patrick, what happened. How can you possibly want people to fall in love?"

"Because I don't just see the end when I think about them," Siska mumbles. "I see the beginning and the middle and, however the fuck it ended up, they were happy for awhile. We are what we are, Gabe, and we do what we do and sometimes you just have to take what you can."

Gabe thinks maybe Siska has a point.

But it's hard to remember the middle, to wade through the fallout to find the insignificant moments; Patrick curled in Pete's arms, Pete leaving butterfly kisses on Patrick's cheeks, of them being so completely wrapped up in each other the rest of the world didn't exist.

Back then, Pete was all Gabe ever wanted, all Gabe ever wanted to be.

Now…he doesn't know.

**

The sun rises, gray and dim across the city still covered in a residual layer of dampness.

Gabe stands up, muscles stiff and aching, and wonders if he's strong enough.

**

Gabe's not surprised to find them still in the waiting room; William's curled up in a chair and Ryland's slumped down with his chin on his chest, both asleep, but Alex is awake, staring into space and twining his fingers in Ryland's hair.

His cheek is a little swollen, mottled green and blue. Gabe hovers for a moment, hands jammed in his pockets. Alex looks at him for a moment, eyes half closed.

"Why are you here?" It's not an accusation, simply a question.

Gabe inhales. "Am I like Pete?"

Alex closes his eyes and for a long moment Gabe thinks that he's asked the wrong question, that maybe Alex doesn't understand or have the answers Gabe didn't realize he was looking for.

"Gabe," Alex says after a long moment, "You're not. You're really, really not."

What's funny is that Gabe always thought that would be the answer that would hurt. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." Alex nods. "Look, Gabe, I know I didn't Pete like you did, but I still knew him. We all knew him; he wass kind of hard to overlook. Pete was bright and brilliant and intense and, yeah, I guess in some superficial ways you are alike, but mostly you're not. Gabe, you're smarter than Pete ever was. You think before you act and you take care of us more than I think we'll ever know."

Gabe's chest constricts and his eyes burn. He's not going to cry, goddamnit, he's fucking not. "Alex."

"Pete was selfish," Alex pressed on. "And a lot of time his selfishness included the people he cared about, but not always. A lot of Pete was what he wanted and what he needed and you, more than anyone, got fucked over by that, Gabe. You don't do that. Except sometimes you're selfless to the point of being selfish because you don't ever believe people want the same thing as you."

"Christ." Gabe presses the heel of his head to his eyes. "I fucked up, Alex."

"Yeah," Alex nods. "You did. But I think you can fix it."

"But what if…" Gabe trails off. "What if, Alex?"

"It won't. Gabe, listen and actually hear me, okay? That won't happen because you won't let it. Pete thought he could change the world just because he wanted to."

"The world doesn't change," Gabe mumbles.

Alex ducks his head. "And that's why you'll be able to keep Nate safe."

"I don't know if I should do this. Alex, I don't know if I can."

Alex's smile is no kind of answer, but Gabe accepts it for what it is.

**

Gabe doesn't know the policy on visitors. Every other time he's been to the clinic before it's only been long enough to get himself or William, once or twice Alex, patched up enough so they could be back on the street the next night without falling apart.

He knows the nurse sitting behind the counter, yawning as he shuffles through a messy stack of his charts. His name's Gerard. His brother, Mikey, used to work the streets till he got sick and no one did anything about it until it was too late. Gerard came looking for him just soon enough so say goodbye and, for reasons no one asks about or understands, he stayed and tries his best to save the world, like maybe if he does he'll be able to save Mikey and forgive himself.

"Excuse me," Gabe mumbles, pressing his hands against his thigh hard enough to feel the sting of freshly opened cuts.

Gerard looks up and gives Gabe an uncomfortably appraising look. "You belong to Nate?"

Gabe doesn't want to think about how Gerard could possibly know that, so he chalks it up to the thing with Alex last night and the man having a talent for reading people. Gabe nods.

"Wanna see him?"

Gabe swallows hard and jerks his head again.

Gerard's eyes soften as he stands. "Come on."

**

Gerard leaves him at the door with a squeeze on his shoulder and the murmured words that Nate's just sleeping.

Gabe stares.

Logically, he knows it's just Nate laying on the bed, chest rising evenly with each breath, but it's like there's a disconnection between knowing and understanding, because Gabe knew Nate got hurt, but he didn't understand what that meant.

Nate looks broken. His skin is a patchwork of blue and black and purple, lines of bruises in the shape of fingers crawl up his arms and around his neck, interspersed with cuts, some shallow, some neatly closed with lines of black stitches. Two of his fingers are neatly splinted together, and a gauze patch covers a wound Gabe can only imagine across his collarbone.

A part of Gabe still says very clearly he should turn around and run while he still can. But they all have a point, Nate is alive.

Gabe forces himself across the room and into the chair beside the bed. He wonders if Alex and Ryland and William have been allowed to see him yet, he wonders if Gerard's taking pity on him, he wonders if Nate's going to forgive him. Tentatively, Gabe slips his hand over Nate's; his skin is warm, palms still callused from the drums he doesn't play anymore.

"Nate?" Gabe mumbles and his eyelids flutter. "Nate?"

Nate cracks his eyes open, settling slowly on Gabe sitting beside him. Gabe wants to throw up, fights it with every fiber of his being as they stare at each other for a long moment. Nate coughs, blinking as he appraises Gabe.

"Hi." Nate says, voice low and rough. "Am I dreaming?"

"No." Gabe swallows a hysterical laugh. "You're not."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry."

Nate blinks. "I forgive you."

Gabe knows he could take the words at face value because Nate won't demand anything else of him, but he also knows that's not fair to either of them. Nate deserves to know why, and Gabe's beginning to think he can't keep it all inside anymore.

"Not yet," Gabe says, taking a deep breath. "I have to…explain. First. I have to tell you why."

Nate jerks his head in a little nod. "Okay."

Gabe closes his eyes and he still doesn't know where the story begins or how it ends, so he picks the moment that stands out most clearly in his head and builds from there.

"I left my family when I was fourteen and came out here. I tried to live on the streets for a couple weeks, but it was November and I was cold and hungry and I ended up with Lucas. And Lucas was the one who told me to go to the corner once dark fell and someone would meet me there, and he'd show me what to do. Teach me how this shit works. That person was Pete."

Nate's eyes widen a little at the name, but he thankfully says nothing.

"Pete was…" Gabe trails off. "Pete was wild and brilliant and he took care of me, he taught me how to keep myself alive and how to make enough to keep everyone happy. I loved him a little."

"A little?" Nate echoes.

"A lot." Gabe huffs out something that's nothing like a laugh. "Which is stupid because I knew he didn't love me back, not like that, but I was a fucking dumb teenager and I thought he was god and batman and everything brave in the world. But, that aside, we were friends and we stayed that way after I got my own corner."

"Tattoo?" Nate asks.

Gabe nods. "Yeah, Pete has a lot of tattoos, but the directions to Neverland he had on his finger. Anyway, for a long time things were fine. He worked his corner, I worked mine, we both got new kids to teach, and life was good. And I knew he wasn't in love in with me, but he'd still hold me and let me sleep in his bed and I could pretend and it was enough.'

"Then one day Lucas sends him this new kid. Patrick. And we all thought Lucas had lost his fucking mind, y'know? Patrick was short and round and, yeah he had a mouth made for sin, but that's not enough. He wasn't gonna make it, there was no way. We figured Pete would give him a couple days and then he'd get sent on his way and it'd be better for everyone. But Pete looked at him and, fuck if I know why, but he decided that Patrick was the only one for him."

Nate's thumb brushes across Gabe's fingers.

"I thought it was a joke," Gabe confesses. "I thought they were just fucking around in a weird way because Pete pulled that kind of shit sometimes. Just who he is. Or was. But after awhile we all realized that it wasn't a joke, and there was no punch line. It was real and that's pretty fucking scary. And before long Pete was whispering about trying to get them out."

Gabe swallows. This where it gets hard.

"I don't know what Pete tried to do because by then he was only really talking in dreams and bullshit, even to me. But he got caught, like we all tried to tell him he would be, and Lucas doesn't react well to betrayal. And he's a sadistic fucker who knew the best way to get to Pete wasn't to hurt him, it was to go through Patrick.'

"I don't know what they did to him. I didn't see. No one did. But we all heard. We heard him screaming and we heard Pete screaming and, fuck, Nate, it took hours. And when it was over. Patrick was dead and Pete was broken, completely and utterly broken."

Nate makes a noise in the back of his throat and Gabe tightens his hold. His hands are shaking, both their hands are shaking; Gabe hasn't told this to anyone, not in four years.

"I knew Pete wasn't gonna get over it," Gabe mumbles, "I should've seen it coming, I guess, but I was so fucking glad that he was okay, I didn't want to see anything except him breathing. But, a few weeks later Pete…couldn't keep going. Drugs aren't hard to find, so he got a hold of a bottle of pills and swallowed them and never got up. I found him when I got in that morning, on his mattress with the fucking bottle in his hand."

"Gabe."

He doesn't look at Nate. "And that's it. Now you know."

Nate brushes his fingers across Gabe's cheeks and they come away wet.

"I forgive you."

**

The thing is, Gabe still, in his heart of heart, believes in his fucked up version of karma.

Nate is the best thing that's ever happened to him and someday, somehow he's going to have to pay for it.

"Do you still want me?" Gabe asks.

"Yes," Nate says without hesitation.

It has to be enough.


End file.
